God Without Clouds (John 12:44-50)
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Here's what Thomas j Ord, the author of Open and Relational Theology, had to say about my upcoming book, the Edge of the Inside Releasing March 31st quote. I love Jeremy Jergen's writing style, but I love his questions, reflections, and proposals. Even more many readers will relate to what Jeremy explores, and many will find his insights helpful.
I do get this book to take an adventure in living and thinking. Well end quote. If you'd like to read a copy before it comes out, we'd love to have you join our book launch team. You can find out more at edge of the inside.com or at the link in the show notes.
jeremy_1_02-12-2026_134647: welcome to another episode of Rebuilding Faith.
These are 10 minute Bible messages for people with questions and doubts, and today I wanna offer you an explanation of not only who Jesus is, but what Jesus is saying in the passage. That may be very different than how you've been told to understand Jesus or how you've ever made sense of [00:01:00] what Jesus is doing.
We're gonna pick up in John chapter 12, beginning in verse 44. Jesus shouted to the crowds, if you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but also God who sent me for when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me. Now for most of us, when you hear Jesus talk like this, when you see John write a description like this, we go to what we think of as the trinity.
We begin to understand this is what Jesus is explaining here, the Trinity to us. But one of the things I want you to consider is that the Trinity as a concept did not exist. The earliest we can trace it back to would be the late second century ce. Which means when they wrote it, this was not a concept that they had.
John didn't understand the idea of Trinity the way that we tend to read into it today. They may be thinking, well then what on earth [00:02:00] is John writing about? What is Jesus talking about? See in their understanding, it was much more of Jesus as. An image of God. Literally the idea of being an idol of something.
Now, in that culture, what they believed is that idols, whether inanimate or animate idols could embody a God. They could image a God. So when you see in the Old Testament that they are suddenly worshiping this golden calf, many of us, we read that today, and we want to dunk on them and be like, well, how stupid are they?
They think that this calf that they made. Is a God. And the answer is no, they didn't. But they thought that that golden calf could embody a very real God that they believed existed. And that's the concept of an idol. That an idol can be a, vessel for a God. And this is more what John is probably getting at more of what Jesus is saying, that he is the vessel which shows [00:03:00] us God, the Father.
So if you have seen Jesus, you've seen God. That's this idea again. The Trinity is a later, addition that is more philosophy and theology of trying to put all of these pieces together. When you get into passages like this, it's far more messy to figure out what were they actually talking about.
And we see this idea of Jesus imaging, God in a variety of different passages throughout the New Testament. In Colossians one, verse 15 says, Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before everything was created in its supreme overall creation. So again, you have this language is the visible image of an invisible God.
So not necessarily the trinity as we think about it, but this representation of what God is really like. Hebrews one, three, the son radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God and he sustains everything [00:04:00] by the mighty power of his command. So you have these expressions of Jesus radiating who God is, but it is more in this imagery sense than necessarily this, idea of God as the trinity.
Then you get to verse 46, Jesus, as I have come as a light to shine in this dark world so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark that you have seen. God, if you have seen Jesus. Jesus says, I will not judge those who hear me, but don't obey me. For I have come to save the world and not to judge it, but all who reject me and my message will be judged on the day of judgment.
By the truth, I have spoken. I don't speak on my own authority. The father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it, and I know his commands lead to eternal life. So I say whatever the father tells me to say. Again, if we are willing to [00:05:00] pause the whole idea of the Trinity before just inserting that in, we get this messier, more robust understanding of what is Jesus talking about.
That as he shows us the Father, he also redirects us to the Father. He even says he's not gonna judge anyone, but there will be a judgment based on the truth. That Jesus has spoken. So Jesus's embodiment of who God is, is the standard. This is the truth that we measure against, which means this. If Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God, then any view of God that doesn't look like Jesus must be questioned.
Because Jesus is showing us what God looks like. It's that embodiment. So anything that doesn't look like Jesus then wouldn't be consistent with God. I would encourage you to use this as the filter for all of your Christianity, all of the way that you read the Bible, but also what you hear [00:06:00] said to you today when you see Christians represent what God is like today.
Which people did Jesus prioritize. That helps us make sense of our day today. Which values did Jesus actually embody? That helps us make sense of the values around us that we see today. And once we see this, once we have our eyes on Jesus, then because he's the standard, we can navigate to what's true. We can figure out based on that standard what looks like Jesus and what doesn't.
Now as one example, this week, the US Attorney General was asked about the lack of transparency and the Epstein files and the way that the Department of Justice has handled that. And I have talked with many Christians who are all on different sides of this whole subject and how they make sense of what's going on.
But in response to this, Pam Bondy, the Attorney General said this. The [00:07:00] DAO is over 50,000 right now. The s and p, almost 7,000 in the Nasdaq Smashing records. Americans 4 0 1 Ks and retirements are booming. And then she said this. That's what we should be talking about. Notice that that redirect of these questions are asking me, this is not what we should be spending our time on.
We should be spending our time on the economy. Look at the stock market. To which I would just say if you have seen the truth, if you have seen Jesus, you can navigate away from that and say, no, that's not what we should be talking about. In no way would the Jesus that we have seen revealed indicate that this is how our priorities should be over the lives of vulnerable and victimized people.
You see, when we have a Jesus looking God. It should cause us to denounce the coverup of the rape and abuse [00:08:00] of children because we've seen Jesus. It should cause us to denounce Christian nationalism because we've seen Jesus. It should cause us to denounce the dehumanization of anyone based on their immigration status or paperwork.
We have seen Jesus, and we can do all of this precisely because we no longer live in the dark. Jesus has embodied God for us, and it should have very real consequences. I wanna close this, something that my friend Greg Boyd has said. He says, Jesus is what God looks like when there are no clouds in the way.
And when the clouds have been removed, we can see what God looks like and that can help us navigate the truth around us. I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith. I.
